Here are the nine traits of narcissistic personality disorder.

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1. Grandiosity – This is an unrealistic view of oneself that they are bigger than life and better than others. They feel that they have a godlike, divine or extremely powerful purpose of being on the earth. Their very being is to be admired and obeyed. Nothing is more important than they are.

2. Arrogant and Domineering – think they are better than everyone else. They know more than anyone else. Controlling of others and dominating. They see others as inferior to them in intelligence, vision, looks, and everything else. They expect other people to admire and be in awe of them.

3. Preoccupation with Success and Power – They have a need to be powerful and have a cult of followers that admire them. They like to have a harem of sorts of people around them, as if they are a king or a queen. Their drive for success and power is due to their need for narcissistic supply and to get into positions where they have manipulate people.

4. Lack of empathy – an inability to care about the feelings of others or put themselves in someone else’s shoes in an emotional way. Actually narcissists and psychopaths have a cold empathy which allows them to understand your fears, weaknesses, hopes and dreams. They can take an inventory of you and then use the your feelings against you.

5. Belief of being unique – They believe that they are very special and that they are better than everyone else. They often think that they have a unique powerful purpose that sets them above everyone else and gives them an excuse to do whatever they want and take whatever they want.

6. Sense of entitlement – They feel that they are entitled to anything and anyone they want. This includes things that belong to other people. It includes taking over the lives of other people and using people and then throwing them away like trash. There is no appreciation when people do anything for them because they were entitled to it, in the first place.

7. Requires excessive admiration – they want to be admired and paid attention to all the time. They have no tolerance for anyone else being in the spotlight. Because they need to have their false self validated, they need people to pay attention to, talk about, admire and basically worship their false self. That way the illusion of the false self stays strong.

8. Exploitative – they will take advantage of other people for their own best interest. They will take more than they give, refuse to pay people for their services in a fair way …if at all, and use people up until there is nothing left of them

9. Envious of others – they are resentful when other people have things that they feel entitled to. They become angry when they see that other people have things that they do not.

Just because we point out the hole someone is about to fall into, does not mean we are being cruel to the person who dug the hole.

We are just trying to keep the person from falling in, because we recognize the hunter who is patiently watching them….and waiting for that person to fall into their carefully crafted trap.

When the prey sees the hunter through the rose colored glasses he gave them, they think we are demonizing the hunter.

They are under the spell of the narcissist. The narcissist usually anticipates that their discarded victim will try to warn other about them. Always 5 steps ahead of you, the narcissist has already gotten to the people you might warn, before you ever think of telling them the truth.

You have most likely already been discredited by your abuser, with lies about your anger disorder, your mental instability and your desire to be vindictive. It does not have to be the truth for the new victim to believe it. It simply has to come out of the mouth of the narcissist that they are now under the spell of.

You have little to no chance to convince the new victim to believe you about the nature of the abuser. It is just the same as when you were first under the spell of the predator yourself.

You probably would not have believed an emotional ex girlfriend who they had already told you was abusive to them. They will think you are either trying to get the narcissist back for yourself, or that you want to break them up to prevent their happiness.

Being in an intimate relationship with a psychpath awakens your reality to a darkness you never knew existed. You always knew that there were serial killers and rapists in the world, but you never knew they could be hidden behind a charming exterior.

You consented to being close to the person they presented themselves to be. But you never consented to being intimate with someone who carries darkness within them.

When you hear people say that you chose to be in a relationship with an abuser, it is confusing and re-traumatizing. They make their point by saying that you had free will and walked into the relationship with open eyes.

They do not understand the mind manipulatiin of a psychopath and how your reality was very different at the beginning of the relationship than it is now.

Not only do you have to come to terms with the cognitive dissonance of the two different realities…the person you thought you were sleeping with….and the person you were actually sleeping with……

You now have to listen to this other proposed reality that you went into the relationship with an abuser with open eyes and free choice.

Only two kinds of people would say this to you….Pathological narcissists….and very closed minded judgemental people who think they are better than you, because of course…it would never have happened to them!

The narcissists that post comments like this on the youtube blogs of survivors are sadistically gaslighting the victims. They are intentionally twisting your reality, which they are fully aware has already been twisted by one of “their kind.”

Victim blaming is most often instigated by pathological narcissists. Other people may believe their lies because they are being manipulated by the narcissist. So the very people saying that no one can have their mind manipulated….are having their own minds manipulated….and their beliefs fed to them by a narcissist.

Being in a partner abuse situation, or living in domestic abuse is a lonely experience. You can lose your sense of self and your confidence in your perceptions.

Reality becomes confused due to gaslighting and emotional abuse of the partner.Your self confidence is crushed and you do not feel like there is any possibility for life outside of the abusive relationship you have become “trauma bonded” to.

You can develope Stockholme Syndrome and feel like you need to defend and cover for the abuser. Living in fear of angering the partner, you become careful of what you say and do.

Isolation is a typical tactic of abusive partners to control their partner and keep them from getting support. You may not even realize that your abuser has intentionally isolated you. You just don’t invite people over anymore, and you feel you have to ask permission to visit anyone.

You are not alone. The methods of abusers are nearly identical and equally terrifying. There is a darkness permeating your soul that you cannot explain.

You need to get support and information about types of abusive personalities and the tactics they use. You can find support that will give you strength and more clarity about what is happening.

Most areas have women’s shelters. They can offer you counseling about getting away and how to do so safely. It may take you time to build up a savings account in your name, but do not stay if you feel you are in danger.

Men have more trouble finding support. Most women’s shelters cannot help you if you are a man living in an abusive relationship. Human services in your area may have resources they can refer you to.

Primary care physicians and local psychiatric services may also be able to guide you toward resources for a place to provide counseling for safe escape.

Living in abuse requires lots of support for you self esteem and mental health. You need help while you are still living there. You will also need help for PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) after you leave.

PTSD is a term most people have heard, but often they do not really know what it means.

If you tell someone you have PTSD, it may be hard for them to know what you mean by that, unless they have it themselves or maybe they have a close friend or family member with it.

People with PTSD have trouble with relationships, but not for the reasons people think.

Once you have been traumatized, and then re-traumatized by triggering situations, you feel generally unsafe and there is a natural tendency to want to retreat…back up your steps and run for cover.

People with PTSD can be re-traumatized by people who do not understand, and by people who are more concerned with their own agenda than really understanding.

When someone with PTSD has certain triggers, and explains those triggers to someone, it is important that they are validated and respected. If someone wants to care about a loved one with PTSD, they need to really listen to that person, when they talk about what triggers them.

*A person that intentionally uses your triggers against you is dangerous to your mental well being.

But then there are people who just don’t want to listen to or respect your boundaries. Your perceptions are not of an significance to them.

Everyone has personal boundaries, but people with post traumatic stress disorder can suffer severe re-traumatization when a loved one does not honor their trigger boundaries.

Some triggers cannot be avoided, such as loud noises that may occur independently from either person. However, talking someone into going to a loud dance club, or guilting them into going to fireworks, when it has been made clear that loud noises are triggers, is abusive.

People who have PTSD from the military, and people who have PTSD from domestic abuse have different causes for their symptoms, but some things are the same.

The fight-or-flight mode is activated by the amygdala. If the brain perceives a threat, even if that threat is not real, the amygdala will send chemicals into the body like adrenaline and cortisol.

The feeling in the body of a “perceived threat” and a real threat is exactly the same. The same physiological responses occur, including blood pressure elevation, and feeling of extreme fear and the feeling that you have to act right away.

Someone who had their jaw fractured by an abusive boyfriend, who suddenly stormed towards them in a fit of anger, may be triggered by someone coming quickly into their personal space, especially if that person is angry.

Once you have asked someone not to do certain things which trigger you, it is a terrible feeling when they still continue to do them. It feels very violating, and only serves to break the trust bond.

Relationships need to be based in trust. Intimate relationships, as well as friendships and family relationships have to feel safe. If one person does not feel safe, then there is a lack of understanding and a lack of trust.

Without both parties feeling safe, the relationship will break down. People with PTSD can find it difficult to trust again, after others have invalidated them about their symptoms.

Sometimes someone will disbelieve you, minimize your trauma, or accuse you of trying to manipulate them with your explanations about your trauma and your triggers. This is very painful and re-traumatizing.

People who have PTSD or C-PTSD from abuse were invalidated as part of the abuse process. Their emotions were minimized, disregarded and made fun of.

To have someone close to you minimize your PTSD, or disbelieve you is re-traumatizing. It gives the victim into an emotional flashbacks or actual sensory flashbacks.

You can only tolerate being traumatized and re-traumatized so many times.

Soldiers that come back from war only to be disrespected by civilians, or invalidated and ignored by the Veterans Administration, are being re-traumatized.

It is a way of invalidating a person’s reality. This has negative effects on the person’s mental and emotional state.

People with PTSD can be perfectly good and caring partners and friends. They just need validation, respect and understanding.

But after repeated re-traumatization, a person feels isolated and too vulnerable to take a chance on trusting another person again. This leads to self isolation, depression, and often suicidal thoughts.

Evolutionary psychology tells us that our subconscious brain feels threatened by the potential that we would be completely isolated, shunned or thrown out of the social circle.

A Little Evolutionary Psychology

In the past, humans lived in social survival groups called tribes. Being accepted and included by the tribe was critical for survival. Being shunned would have meant death !

Our primal brain (called the reptilian brain) perceives rejection by the tribe to be potentially life threatening. When we are feeling a similar kind of threat, it triggers the fight or flight response in our limbic system of the brain. The amygdala becomes active and send all kinds of alerts and chemicals into the body.

Technically, we could survive living alone and isolated these days, but we were not meant to live in isolation… especially isolation due to “mobbing” or “scapegoating” by the tribe.

This is one of the reasons that scapegoated family members, suffer such severe mental and emotional trauma.

People with PTSD need to feel that they will still be accepted by the Tribe (family, community…whatever applies to the situation…).

They need to know that their personal reality will be validated, even though it may be very different from that of other people. The experiences someone with PTSD has endured may seem strange to people that have not ever had that kind of trauma in their reality.

Isolation can cause death by suicide or “failure to thrive.”

Self isolation will almost always cause severe depression. But being re-traumatized is just as bad, and the brain will try to lead people away from that pain.

Our primal brains are designed to take us away from danger, or perceived danger….and towards pleasure. But the “away from danger” is the priority.

Re-exeriencing the feelings of danger, fight or flight chemicals and physiological responses, is not something that anyone could tolerate on a regular basis.

We were not built to feel in danger all the time. Being in a state of hyper-arousal all the time depleats the immune system and causes mental disorders.

People with PTSD need understanding and validation.

They need their loved ones to be sensitive to their triggers, and to pay attention to what the person asks and needs.

Otherwise. the relationships cannot continue in a way that is safe for the PTSD sufferer. The person with PTSD will shut down and crawl inside of themselves. No healthy relationship can be sustained without safety for both people.

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Psychic violence is an attack on your psychological well being. Psychopaths and malignant narcissists attack you in this manner, in order to make you spiritually weaker. Keep up some kind of spiritual practice for your own well being, whether it is yoga, meditation, drumming circles, church groups with trusted people, or watching videos that spiritually uplift you…ex. Teal Swan or Ajahn Brahm, the buddhist monk.